But, even if you put all these incidents together, they wouldn't add up to what happened at the Liston-Clay weigh-in.
What was to become known as "the weigh-in to end all weigh-ins" began around 10:00 A.M. February 25, 1964, when Clay's entourage began gathering at the site of the fight, Miami's Convention Hall. There, in concert assembled, were Sugar Ray Robinson; Cassius's brother, Rudy; yours truly; cotrainer Chickie Ferrara; a couple of sparring partners, including Jimmy Ellis; Luis Sarria, chief masseur; and a new addition to Cassius's growing fistic family, Drew "Bundini" Brown.
Bundini, pronounced "BOO-dini" by Cassius (who sometimes shortened it to just "BOO"), had descended upon the 5th Street Gym right before the Liston fight. As I learned later, he had introduced himself to Cassius as having been part of Sugar Ray Robinson's entourage. But I had worked against Robinson twice with Carmen Basilio and gotten to know everyone in Robinson's camp from his manager, George Gainford, on down. And, for the life of me, I couldn't place him. Nevertheless, whatever his credentials were, he had ingratiated himself to Cassius, who, finding a kindred spirit, adopted him as someone who "makes me laugh."
I remember one day Cassius coming up to me in the gym and saying, "Ang, I'm bringing Drew Brown down from New York." Now I had heard about him from my sources in New York who said he was "some sort of nut," always talking in outerworldly tongues about such things as the sun, the moon, and black satellites as if he were possessed by some alien spirits. So I said to Cassius, "For God's sake, don't do that. He'll drive me nuts and run everyone, especially the newspapermen, out of the room." "Don't worry," Cassius said, "I'll take care of him." And although his arrival had the effect of a lit match thrown into a powder keg, Cassius took care to keep him away from me and prevented him from bothering me or anyone else in the camp. Brown turned out to be a positive addition, working toward the same end as we all were: winning. And he proved to be a great plus for Cassius, who believed Bundini "charged my batteries."
Unable to find "charging batteries" on any boxing job spec sheet, nobody ever quite figured out exactly what it was that Bundini did. He billed himself as an assistant trainer. But you sure could have fooled me. He couldn't even perform the simple task of putting on a pair of gloves. One time he came to me after Cassius had slapped him for screwing up even that basic job. "Angie," he cried, "I can't put gloves on." So I showed him how.
Another time he called himself a "witch doctor ... a good witch doctor." If I were to describe what he really did, it might be somewhat along the lines of being a mascot, several boxers having had mascots—Bob Fitzsimmons had a lion and Sugar Ray Robinson and Sonny Liston, midgets. But, thinking about it, his function might be more accurately described as being the camp's court jester or cheerleader. No matter what you called him, he sure added a touch of Barnum & Bailey to our traveling circus.
It was in his role as a cheerleader that Bundini excelled. In his own words, he believed, "You can't cook if the stove isn't hot, and Bundini puts the right things in the soup." Bundini continued to put his "things" in the pot, steaming Ali up. Now he steamed him up with his line "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee"—although I always thought butterflies flitted, not floated. It was a line that would earn him a spot in Boxing's Bartlett, alongside such memorable quotes as Bob Fitzsimmons's "The bigger they are, the harder they fall," Joe Gans's "Bringing home the bacon," Joe Louis's "He can run, but he can't hide," and Kid McCoy's "I'm the real McCoy." That line was Bundini's and nobody else's, but it would become Cassius's, as he practiced saying it time after time, committing it to memory.
Both Bundini's cheerleading and his soon-to-be-famous line would come into play at the weigh-in. Cassius's band of merrymakers had gotten to Convention Hall early and come down the hallway to the Cypress Room where the weigh-in was to be held, chanting and whoopin' it up. Some of us were wearing denim jackets with the words "Bear Hunting" on the back and others wore cowboy hats, though I still don't know why. Anyhow, the first to get to the Cypress Room door were Cassius and Bundini. Flinging it open, they began chorusing at full volume: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.... Rumble, young man, rumble!" Then the two, now screaming in each other's face, ended with the sound of two men choking to death, a long echoing "aaaaaargh!" Cassius then banged the floor with his cane, the same cane he had chased Sonny around with at the airport, and shouted, "I'm the champ! Tell Sonny I'm here. Bring on that big ugly bear." And with that they were gone, leaving those in the room to wonder just what the hell they had witnessed.
About three-quarters of an hour later, the same madcap group made their way back to the Cypress Room. This time Cassius, now clad in a terrycloth robe, hit the door and immediately scanned the room for his adversary, hollering, "Tell Sonny I'm here with Sugar Ray Robinson." Not spotting him, he went on, "Liston is flat-footed, but me and Sugar Ray are the prettiest dancers around." Then he added, "Round Eight to prove I'm great." Turning to Bundini, the two amped up their earlier shout in unison: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee ... rumble, young man, rumble."
Cynical boxing writers, used to almost anything, could only stare in amazement at the mind-boggling scene taking place in front of them. They had expected something out of the ordinary from the kid they thought, in boxingese, was "daffy as a southpaw," but this? Watching boxing's equivalent of the Marx Brothers' stateroom scene playing out before them, they could only believe that instead of his usual self-display of verbal pyrotechnics, Clay had finally gone over the edge. He was frightened, scared. What else was there to think?
A few minutes later Liston and his entourage walked into the madhouse to a round of applause. What puzzled me was how Liston, the man who had gone to jail for crushing men's skulls like eggs as an enforcer for the mob, could suddenly go from being an antihero to a hero. I mean, this was a man who had been treated like a leper with a slight case of Bright's disease thrown in for good measure only a few months before when he had beaten the popular Floyd Patterson, and now he was being applauded? There was something wrong with this picture.
One person not applauding was Cassius, who now, in what appeared to be a fit of hysteria, made as if he was going to charge the champion, who was just stepping on the scales. Thrashing about, he screamed, "I'm ready to rumble now. I can beat you anytime, champ. You're scared, chump. I'm gonna eat you alive." As he shouted and squirmed, seemingly about to make his move to the platform, he whispered to me, "Hold me back, Angie!" wink-wink, which I did with all of two fingers and one thumb. Even Bill Faversham and Sugar Ray Robinson got into the act, both trying to "hold" him as Cassius gave out a couple of more winks in their direction. It was bedlam, but Cassius played it to the hilt and as realistically as any Hollywood star ever played a role.
As Liston stepped off the scales—weighing in at 218, three pounds more than what most had expected him to scale—and began to put on his silk robe, Cassius yelled, "Hey, sucker ... you're a chump. You've been tricked, chump." Not quite sure how to handle the hullabaloo swirling around him, Liston's only retort was, "Don't let anybody know. Don't tell the world!" It was almost drowned out by the next bombast from Cassius, who screamed back, almost in a shrill, "You are too ugly. You are a bear. I'm going to whup you so baaaaad. You're a chump, a chump, a chump." More bedlam.
Next up on the scales was Cassius. As he began to make his way to the platform holding the scales, he beckoned to Sugar Ray and Bundini to join him, hollering, "I got Sugar Ray in my corner.... Sugar Ray was a dancer ... just like me." However, the special police surrounding the platform stopped them. More screaming from Cassius. "Let them up.... This is my show ... my show," he hollered until the police waved all three up. Taking off his robe, he stepped on the scales. "Clay, 210 and 1/2 pounds," the Miami Beach Boxing Commissioner shouted for the benefit of the newspapermen.
The weights, however, were only part of the story. For Ed Lassman, the commissioner, who earlier had warned Cassius, "I will tolerate no ranting or raving," followed his first announcement with a second: "
Cassius Clay is fined $2,500 for his behavior on the platform and the money will be withheld from Clay's purse."
The weigh-in portion of the weigh-in over, the two fighters now stepped off the platform for their physicals. As Clay sat in front of Dr. Alex Robbins, he held up eight fingers, indicating eight rounds. For his part, which up to now had been one of total bemusement during the brouhaha taking place around him, Liston sat in a nearby chair holding up two fingers for photographers, as in two rounds. Dr. Robbins busied himself taking Cassius's blood pressure, which registered an alarmingly high reading of 200/100, and shook his head, saying, "That's more than twice your normal rate." Syndicated columnist Jimmy Cannon was hovering nearby, pen poised, and asked, "Does that mean he's frightened, Doc?" To which Dr. Robbins nodded, replying, "He's in mortal fear or he's emotional. We'll have to call the fight off if his pressure doesn't come down before he goes into the ring."
That did it! When Cannon, in a game of "Telephone," told the other writers what he had been told, the reporters, most of whom were probably thinking the kid was goofy to begin with, began to use words like hysterical, frightened, and terrified to describe his bizarre behavior. Words like these eventually found their way into their prefight stories, under screaming headlines that read: "Hysterical Outburst at Weigh-In" and "Clay Left Fighting at Weigh-In," followed by reports that the fight was in danger of being called off.
Up to this point I had contained myself, answering a few questions from reporters. One, Jack Fried of the Philadelphia Bulletin asked, "What will Clay do when he gets knocked down?" to which I answered, "If he gets knocked down, he'll get up. But I don't think he will because he'll beat Liston." Another, I'm not sure who, asked, "What effect will Clay's being scared have on him?" Believing that the "scared" one was Liston, who was so shook up he couldn't talk and didn't know what to do with the kid, I said, "With that kind of fear, I'd face a cage of lions. Cassius will win."
When it came to boxing, my fighters were fearless. But when it came to their health almost everything terrified them. Like the hypochondriac's tombstone that read "Now do you believe me?" they would have me believe that every headache was a brain tumor, every upset stomach an ulcer, and every cold a case of pneumonia. In order to ease their minds and get them back on boxing, I had them visit Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, a super fight fan I had gotten to know through Chris's Tuesday night fights. Ferdie would furnish each of the so-called "sufferers" with aspirins and other harmless medication, telling them they were now "fine" and, as a favor to me, never charged them for his services. I'm not sure I did Ferdie any great favors by referring my boxers to him since they soon began showing up with their wives, kids, and entire families, always expecting to be treated the same way, which meant for free. (I borrowed Ferdie's method of treatment by feeding my fighters aspirins before fights, always telling them they were "pep pills" and that when the pills kicked in, the fighter would be able to knock down walls. Then I would keep coming back and asking, "Do you feel it yet?" Most did!)
Now I had something far more important for Ferdie to do than merely treat hypochondriacs. Concerned that the commission was not going to allow the fight to go on in the wake of Dr. Robbins's remark that Clay was "in mortal fear," I asked Ferdie to come with me—quickly. We raced off to Cassius's house, where, to our amazement, we found the supposedly hysterical Cassius sitting on the front steps playing with a bunch of kids from the neighborhood. Ferdie examined him right then and there, taking his pulse and temperature, and found him "normal" and in perfect condition to fight. Using my contacts with the press, I went inside and made calls to Jack Cuddy at the Associated Press and to Ed Pope at the Miami Herald to tell them Clay was fine, his blood pressure now fifty over forty. Better than fine, he was in "good shape" for the fight that night.
Clay, who former light-heavyweight champion José Torres said was "the only fighter I know who can bullshit himself," had now successfully bull-shitted the writers, the commission, and the commission doctor. But not Liston, who knew the look of fear on a fighter's face, having induced fear in so many opponents. And this wasn't it. Madness, craziness perhaps, but not fear.
But even though Cassius had been examined and found "fine," he was anything but to the oddsmakers, who made him a 7–1 underdog. (Cassius's take on the odds was: "If you'd like to lose your money, be a fool and bet on Sonny." Sonny's view was: "The odds should be ten to nothing that he don't last for the first round.") He was an even bigger underdog to the comedians, Jackie Gleason predicting, "Clay should last about eighteen seconds and that includes the three seconds he brings in the ring with him." And Joe E. Lewis quipped, "I'm betting on Clay ... to live."
Cassius was more than just fine. He was so composed that one hour before the fight he was in the audience watching brother Rudy getting the bejabbers beaten out of him in a prelim bout, discussing what Rudy was doing wrong and not doing at all.
An hour later he stood midring, face-to-face with a scowling Liston, awaiting referee Barney Felix's prefight instructions. Liston looked his menacing self; his bathrobe stuffed with six towels, giving him a wall-to-wall terrycloth look, his death-ray eyes fixed on Cassius. But instead of cowering like the rest of Liston's opponents, a confident, almost cocksure Cassius met his gaze squarely. And with Cassius following my instructions to "stand tall and look down at him, he's shorter," Liston now realized, for the first time, that he was facing a taller opponent, the only time in his career that he had. But even more devastating was what happened next. As referee Barney Felix droned on with his instructions, Cassius hissed, in one final "gotcha" that must have hit Liston harder than any punch he had ever taken, "Chump! Now I gotcha, chump!"
(Not every psyche job tried during the prefight instructions works, however. When Carmen Basilio met Sugar Ray Robinson the first time, as referee Al Berl was going through the usual "the fighter scoring the knockdown must go to a neutral corner" stuff, Robinson leaned forward in the direction of Basilio and, teeth bared, snarled at him. Carmen's reaction? He came back to the corner roaring with laughter. He couldn't have cared less what Ray did before or during the fight. He was going to beat him. And did.)
Before the bell sounded for the start of the first round, Liston stood in his corner shuffling his feet like a bull seeing a red cape, the way he always did, and giving Cassius the evil eye. As Cassius would say later, "Man, he meant to kill me."
At the opening bell, Liston lurched out of his corner, an energized Frankenstein coming to life, running at Cassius and throwing the first punch of the fight, a long left jab. As soon as he started his jab, Cassius slid gracefully to his left, away from the punch, which missed by a foot or more. At times Cassius almost seemed to be running as he circled around the champion, moving backward and from side to side. Liston jabbed and jabbed again, missing him by wide margins—nobody there, as Cassius was gone by the time the jabs arrived. Pressing forward with bad intentions, Liston loaded up on his ponderous right hand, trying to maneuver his challenger into a corner to decapitate him. Cassius, who had been told that "Liston's eyes tip you when he is about to throw a heavy punch," kept moving and moving some more, not bothering to throw a punch in anger until the round was almost over. Then out came a left jab, almost like a switchblade, flicking into the champion's face. Liston seemed frozen. By the time he recovered and surged forward, Clay was gone again.
The bell ending the round sounded, and Liston stomped back to his corner, not even bothering to sit down. Clay had already won an important psychological victory by lasting the round. I knew then and there that we "had" Liston. Now, as Clay looked over at Liston, he told me later he could only remember thinking, "Man, you're gonna wish you had rested all you could when we pass this next round."
Remembering what his trainer, Willie Reddish, had told him, that if he didn't take Clay out early he would have to slow him down by clubbing him to the body, Liston came out for Round Two intent on inflicting bodily damage. But even though he cornered Cassius and landed some brutal blows to Cassius's li
ver and kidneys, Cassius wiggled out to center ring and moved away, almost galloping to his own left as Liston came straight at him with his left extended. Now Cassius was picking his openings with the care of a scalpel-wielder, his jab rarely missing and his fast combinations landing with increasing frequency, freezing Liston every time he was hit. Bang-bang, in and out. He was kicking the hell out of Liston.
A tiny cut, barely perceptible, had opened on the champion's left cheekbone, under his eye. It was the first time in his thirty-four professional fights that Liston had been cut. Liston retaliated with his first meaningful blow of the fight, a long left like a two-by-four coming out of a basement window, catching Cassius. But even though Cassius was momentarily rocked, Liston didn't follow up, either not realizing how hard he had hit his challenger or already too tired to capitalize on it.
In Round Three Liston continued to lumber forward, almost as if treading in quicksand, hacking away at where Cassius had been, not where he was as the challenger continued to move in and out, out and in. Midway through the round, Cassius inflicted the first real damage of the fight. Feinting with his left, he drove home a right hand, busting Liston's cheekbone. Suddenly the tiny wound gushed open. At the end of the third, Liston walked back to his corner, a weary and wounded warrior, and for the first time, sat on his stool.
During training we had heard the usual rumors, that Liston had sustained a minor injury to his left arm or his left shoulder, nobody was sure which. Now, between Rounds Three and Four, Liston's handlers were busy working to close the deep cut under his left eye and massaging his left shoulder with liniment. The fourth round was the most uneventful of the fight. Cassius, who had gone ten rounds only three times, was pacing himself to go the full fifteen. But, as he walked back to the corner after Round Four, he was squinting and blinking, and came to the corner saying, "I can't see, Angelo. My eyes are burning!" Nobody in the corner was sure why. Maybe, we thought, he had been blinded by some foreign substance, something called Monsel solution, a caustic substance that had been used on Liston's cut. Cassius sweats profusely, and he may have touched it with his forehead and whatever it was had run down into his eyes because both eyes were affected. Or it might have been the liniment used on Liston's shoulders and Cassius had somehow gotten it into his eyes by leaning on Liston during a clinch. Whatever it was, my fighter was blinded.
My View from the Corner Page 13